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Google officially passes 100,000 Android apps

updated 12:35 pm EDT, Mon October 25, 2010

by MacNN Staff

Google confirms 100,000 Android app count

Google quietly confirmed this morning that it had officially passed 100,000 active apps in Android Market. The tally has been reached just over two years after Android itself launched and half a year after the 50,000 mark. When it launched alongside the T-Mobile G1, the store had just a few dozen titles and didn't even support paid titles.

The growth rate is still behind that of Apple, which officially hit 250,000 iOS apps in August and is now unofficially over 280,000. It still makes Google's store the second largest and well ahead of rivals like BlackBerry App World, which hit 10,000 well after either Apple or Google.

The combined Android manufacturers' ranks have overtaken iPhone sales on the world stage, but apps haven't completely followed suit. The reasons have never been officially touched upon by Google, but device and version fragmentation has been a problem. In addition to only a third running Android 2.2, the platform has had multiple resolutions and a mixture of form factors that have made it harder to target a wide range of phones.

The platform has still become more of a home for commercial apps in recent months, owing both to its share and to periodic dissatisfaction from developers who want more features or don't like restrictions imposed by Apple.

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I have an android phone. I've downloaded plenty of apps. The vast majority of the ones i've downloaded have an 'unfinished' feel to them. They work, sorta, but aren't very smooth in operation. Orientation doesn't work half the time, text flow is horrendous, icons are incorrect resolutions, etc.

Now, there have been a few that were decent, but as I said, the majority I've tried haven't been worth c***.

How many 5 star apps does each have? That matters more than the raw quantity.

Really? they've all been that bad? Really?.... Why do you sound like a scorned Verizon customer that wanted an Iphone so bad you that you had to rant on a 100,000 developers apps? The apps are fine. Yes, there are some turds... just like in the istore. Delete and move on. The point here is with either store you will most likely find exactly what you are looking for. That is all that matters. A Healthy store is good for us all.

Everyone wins... isn't that what drives innovation?

I don't need a 5 star app... i just need what I want... and so far I have found more than enough on my Market.

The number of 5 star apps is completely immaterial. Android could have 50,000 5-star apps, but if they all are VNC and SSH apps, they really don't help a majority of users. The iPhone could have 100,000 5-star apps, but if half of those are all farting apps, it really doesn't mean something to the non-idiot population of iPhone users. And if the other half are games, that isn't going to matter to the non-gamer.

The only thing that matters are how many apps are available that provide useful services and capabilities to YOU.

First, don't mistake low quantity with high quality, or the thought that high quantity sacrificed quality - they aren't truly related at all.

Blackberry App world is a great example of both low quality and low quantity, same with Nokia's Ovi store.

We just can't draw conclusions from a raw number like 100,000 or 280,000 - other than one does signifiy more developer interest.

Right now there is a rush to make money, and people are looking to garner attention, even the hope is a f*** app that took 2 days to write, can generate enough interest to generate some payback - low cost, low return, strategy.

What I want, is for the market to mature. Where significant resources are put, to write a rather nice app, and they payback comes from owning the market, and a sell through measured in years, not days.

The market will get there. Apple has a lead right now, but, frankly both Android and Apple are going through the same maturation process. In my opinion, having used both markets, Android is slightly more frustrating, but not enough to worry about.

We've talked about games, ssh apps, vnc - one area of interest to me, are educational apps, and really the educational apps are quite bad right now, on both markets.

We haven't had someone really exploit the mobile tablet in ways that, frankly won't be exploited until everyone is carrying a smartphone - right now you can't make certain assumptions ,that you need to be able to make, in order to make a collaborative app work.

But in a few years - I have high hopes that the app makers will get it (one or two) and then everyone else will copy.

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